Before today, iPhone users would be ferried between a native application — say, Gmail, for example — and the Safari Web browser even if they had the corresponding service’s native app installed. Directions would open in Maps.Google.com instead of the Google Maps app; videos would load on YouTube’s website instead of the native application; and other links would open in Safari, even if users preferred Chrome. This prevented Google’s (and many other developers’) applications from taking over the iPhone, requiring each action to pass through Apple’s own applications even if they were, well, shit.

Now, with Gmail and Google’s other “core” services operating in tandem, iPhone users might finally be able to avoid Safari, or Mail.app, or — and this is the big one — Apple’s Maps application. Between this and the introduction of (an admittedly stripped-down version of) Google Now on iOS, the iPhone is starting to look less like a slave to Apple’s will and more like a Google-phone that happens to have an Apple logo on its back.

But none have focused so much of their efforts on iOS — even though they are building a competing operating system — as Google, as I outlined last December:

As romantic as it may be to think that Google has suddenly upped its software efforts because of a change in the winds or an abandonment of its more “out there” efforts, it seems that the most likely motivation is also the most banal: Money. Google wants to make it, and shipping good software to iOS users is a good method of doing so.

Google’s success in this matter could be seen in a number of ways. It could be through upped revenues from mobile devices. It could be ever-increasing Android shipments and fewer iPhone sales. Or it could be as simple as realizing that all of Apple’s default applications have been relegated to a folder, with Google-built products taking their place in users’ Docks and home screens.

Today’s update brings Google that much closer to obviating Apple’s built-in apps and spreading throughout users’ iPhones, and that much easier to rely on Google, not Apple, for many of the things users do on their smartphones every day. That sounds like a Google-phone to me.

Booker, which helps service businesses better engage with customers online, has raised $35 million in a Series C round led by Medina Capital, with participation from strategic investor First Data, Jump Capital, and Signal Peak Ventures, as well as existing investors. The New York City company now sees 3 million appointments booked monthly across 73 countries in 11 languages on its platform. [via Booker]

PCH, a company which “helps entrepreneurs turn ideas into brands and makes a variety of consumer tech products for major companies such as Apple,” has acquired Fab for a reported $15 million in cash and stock. Fab previously had a $1 billion valuation and raised $325 million. It will “continue to focus on design” at PCH. [Source: Bloomberg]

BlackBerry has unveiled several new smartphones at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, including the touchscreen-focused BlackBerry Leap and a device with a “dual curve slider,” in addition to its keyboard-equipped products. [Source: New York Times]

March 3, 2015

“I hope to have a bigger presence in the tech world. I love coming up with different app ideas, and I have a few more that are coming out. Once you get started and you have this creative bug of ideas that you want to get out, I feel like I’ve partnered with the right team, and now I have the creative outlet to make that happen. I’m happy that people are into it and perceiving it well. I just want to create more apps.”

PayPal is planning to acquire Paydiant, the company behind CurrentC — retailers’ answer to Apple Pay — for a reported $280 million. No word yet on how the companies will mix, nor if Paydiant’s relationship with the industry group behind CurrentC will remain intact. [Source: Re/code]

Microsoft is in talks to acquire Prismatic, a news aggregation service that uses natural language processing to recommend content in which its users might be interested, according to a report from TechCrunch. Apple, Yahoo, Google, and Facebook are all said to have expressed similar interest in the company. (Which is surely a sign of actual interest and not at all an attempt by someone at the company to make it seem like a hot commodity — right?) [Source: TechCrunch]

March 2, 2015

“Just wanted to confirm that the rumors are true — I’m excited to be running Google’s Photos and Streams products! It’s important to me that these changes are properly understood to be positive improvements to both our products and how they reach users.”